street to the barn.
“I surely do hate to bother you, Clint,” she said dryly, “but I’d like to get unloaded and make it to the house in time for some of Bobbie Ann’s hot biscuits.”
Well, there was no hope for it. Bobbie Ann would have his hide if he caused a big fuss and ruined Christmas Eve, so he might as well find a temporary spot for Cait’s horses.
“The quarantine barn’s empty,” he said, throwing the words at her over his shoulder.
“Fine. Thanks.”
But she didn’t turn and start back to her truck. A quick glance from the corner of his eye told him that.
He moved faster, tried to walk away from her into the long, limestone barn, but she stayed right with him the whole way. He ignored her, led the colt to his stall and took the blanket from the rack on the door.
Cait walked around them and went to the black’s head, grasped the lead right under his chin to hold him. Clint refused to turn loose of the rope.
“You’re in a hurry,” he growled. “Go on.”
“Not that big a hurry,” she said absently, stepping back to look the colt over as if he were the only thing in the barn.
Clint clenched his teeth. Wasn’t that just like a woman? Just like Cait—first she’s in a fit to be gone and the next minute you can’t run her off with a stick.
He gathered the blanket and went to slip it over the colt’s head.
“I’ve got him,” he said sharply.
“So have I,” she said, laughing a little as she helped manage the blanket.
“Very funny,” he said sarcastically.
She was, without a doubt, the stubbornest woman he’d ever met.
Their hands brushed together as they brought the big blanket over the colt’s tossing head. Cait’s bare fingers were surprisingly warm in this frosty weather—warm enough to send a twinge of heat through him.
The black stepped sideways. Cait moved with the colt, keeping parallel with Clint to spread the blanket. He set his jaw. Why didn’t she just go on about her business and get out of his?
Why didn’t she go away, so he couldn’t catch even one faint drift of her citrusy scent?
“I can blanket this horse,” he said sharply.
She glanced up at him, held his gaze.
“You can certainly ride him,” she said sincerely. “You two looked like poetry out there.”
That stunned him. So did the pleasure that ran through him with her words.
“Compliments don’t excuse you sneaking up on me,” he muttered.
She grinned before she leaned over to reach under the colt’s belly to hand him the strap to buckle.
“Don’t worry, Clint,” she said. “I won’t tell your secret.”
“Tell whatever you want,” he snapped.
She chuckled as she handed him the other strap.
“So you’re not vulnerable to blackmail, huh, Clint?”
He snorted. “As if you’d need blackmail, huh, Cait? I’m thinking a bulldozer’s more your style.”
She straightened suddenly, at the very same time he did, and smiled at him across the horse.
“Aw, come on. It’s Christmas. Let’s not fight.”
He couldn’t keep from watching that smile. He couldn’t keep from noticing the sparkle in her dark eyes.
To tell the truth, he couldn’t move a muscle. Suddenly all he wanted was to look at Cait.
“Hey, Clint, Christmas Eve gift,” she said.
The ancient greeting handed down from his Appalachian ancestors startled him once more. The magic phrase that claimed the other person’s first gift filled him with sudden memories of playing this game with his brothers. Then it filled him with anger and regret. She had no business even saying it—it sounded strange in her northern accent.
“Always one for a little family tradition, huh, Cait?”
Quick, deep hurt showed in her big dark eyes. It wiped her smile away.
Guilt tugged at him. He was never one to be deliberately cruel and he’d spoken before he thought. Cait was practically an orphan—she had no family traditions of her own.
She was tough, though, this Irish girl from Chicago. A little hurt would never damage her confidence.
“Yes. Ever since I fell in love with your brother I’ve been into the traditions of this family.”
She gave him that straight look of hers that dared him to contradict her.
“I’m a McMahan, too, Clint, whether you like it or not.”
He didn’t like it, but there wasn’t a blessed thing he could do about it.
From the instant she got back into her truck and turned the key in the ignition, Cait wouldn’t let herself think beyond the moment at hand. Not one second beyond it.
The night was beginning to lighten from true black to a hint of gray as she put the gearshift into Reverse and backed away from the indoor arena. While she pulled out into the paved street and drove past the west end of the barn, she watched the sky in her rearview mirror, waiting for the first glow of pink to prove that the day truly was coming.
Her eyes burned with fatigue and so did her heart, but she wasn’t going to think about that now. Not right now. She was unloading her new horses into their new home and after that she’d think about whatever was next.
The security lights scattered over the ranch were still bright against the darkness, and when she’d reached the barn farthest from the other buildings she parked under the light beside its door. Just get them out and comfortably settled, that was all she had to do. Throw them their alfalfa and get them some water.
Suddenly even that seemed like too much to contemplate. Her limbs felt too shaky to do anything.
Cait set her brake and turned on the lights inside the trailer. She’d driven longer trips than this with no more frequent stops than she’d made tonight. She’d hauled Roy’s horses all the way to Ohio to the Quarter Horse Congress, nearly twenty-four hours with no relief driver and no sleep.
Exhaustion wasn’t her problem.
What was the problem?
She snapped her mind away from that next logical thought and got out of the truck. Not allowing so much as a pause to reach back inside for her canvas coat, she headed for the trailer. She’d work fast enough to keep warm in just her fleece jacket.
“You are some fine travelers,” she said as she opened the narrow door and stepped up inside, “with, perhaps, an exception here and there. Which one of you has been kicking the side?”
The sight of the nice horses, not great, but plenty good, sound horses—her horses—strengthened her. For all these years, she’d never legally owned a horse, and now she owned seven. Today or tomorrow, Christmas or not, she’d get all the registration paperwork ready to mail. She couldn’t wait to see her name on those official papers.
She let down the padded strap across the rear of the short, roan horse and untied his head.
“I only hope I’m not making a big mistake unloading you here,” she confided as she backed him out, “but I can’t go somewhere else now. If I find another location for my school, Clint will think he ran me off and he’ll only be harder to deal with next time.”
And there would be a next time, because she was not giving up her rights to be on this ranch. For one thing, the rent money she’d